


Aurora

by Amethyst_88



Series: Aurora [1]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3718213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst_88/pseuds/Amethyst_88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ness Masen is the new girl at Forks High School. Who she is and who she appears to be are two different things. Ness is there to experience being regular teenage girl, but she has strange friends, a freaky bonding she has no choice over and her parents' marriage just disintegrated. Being a teen looked easier in the movies...</p>
<p>*This work is a re-edited version of a story I posted over at FanFiction in 2011*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fish out of Water

The sparkles in her skin instantly drew my eye and I watched her walk with a boy, slowly, almost reluctantly, across the parking lot in the direction of the school buildings. Other students were hanging out by their cars, greeting friends they’d last seen before the summer vacation. I had no such friends and so headed off in the direction I was required to go, following the glittering girl at a distance.  
She was tall and slim and dressed head to foot in black, in contrast to every other girl in the parking lot. They were all embracing the warm September sun, exposing as much flesh as they could. Artificially tanned legs in denim shorts and spaghetti-strapped tops seemed to be the uniform of the day. I'd chosen jeans and a purple top, my choice in rough alignment with the rest of the girls. As I followed, the strange girl's hair was caught by the breeze, streaming out behind her like a cape. It was long, almost waist length, poker straight and of the palest blonde. The boy walking next to her was equally blonde, his hair just skimming the collar of his white t-shirt. He was a couple of inches taller than the girl and his slim-cut black jeans emphasised his skinniness.  
As I approached the door, my nerves assaulted me, although there was no reason for it. I knew where I was going. I'd been here yesterday with Charlie when I registered for the new semester. That had been an interesting introduction to life in Forks and not one that I'd been entirely comfortable with. The Administrator, Mrs Cope, had spent a long time fawning over the remembrance of my cousin and then had made things a whole lot worse, by fawning over Charlie. Although he wasn't married to Sue, they did live together and had done for several years. Surely Mrs Cope knew that?  
The girl and boy were going the same way as I was and as they reached the door the boy pulled it open and the girl went through. He noticed I was following and waited, holding the door open for me. He greeted me with a smile that reached to his bright blue eyes. I murmured a shy 'thank you' in return for his kindness and darted inside before he let the door close behind us.  
The waiting area was overbearingly warm. It was packed with potted plants and filled with the smell of plastic from new chairs, arranged in a row along one wall. The girl was already at the counter and from behind one of the desks on the other side came Mrs Cope. I noticed two other office workers casting wide-eyed looks in my direction. They too had noticed the striking resemblance to my cousin, a previous student here.  
Mrs Cope smiled broadly at us, she had an ease and familiarity with them. Obviously, they had been here before.  
"Welcome to your first day at Forks High School", she addressed us all. "I see you've already met Vanessa Masen who I mentioned to you yesterday." The woman gestured to me.  
"Who?" The girl's head snapped round and she looked at me for a second and then her face relaxed, as if she liked what she saw. "Ah; the other new girl." She gave me a wry smile. She spoke with a strange accent that I couldn't place. It wasn't American and I didn't think it was Canadian either. Where Mrs Cope had told them about me, she hadn't told me about them. I was glad it was something she now rectified.  
"This is Jessica and Daniel Taylor." She gestured to them. Brother and sister, obviously.  
"Jess,” the girl replied. “Just call me Jess."  
"OK. Jess and Daniel,"  
"Dan." Her brother said gruffly, he was over by the notice board now.  
Mrs Cope laughed. "Jess and Dan. They’ve just moved here from England." Mrs Cope's voice conveyed how impressed she was with this. England? Hmm, they didn't sound like the English people I knew. It must be a regional accent.  
"Vanessa is…"  
"Ness," I replied. I wasn't Vanessa to anyone. Jess turned and smiled broadly at the shared shortening of our names.  
"Ness is the cousin of one of our most successful former students." I resisted rolling my eyes. I should have placed a bet on the length of time it took to bring up the subject of Edward. Mrs Cole emphasised the word successful, but with the red her cheeks were going, I'd bet she was substituting 'successful' for another word in her head. I felt suddenly very protective of my cousin.  
"Is she?" Jess’s tone of bored indifference mercifully gave Mrs Cope no further opportunity to sing the praises of Edward Cullen, much to her clear annoyance. She disappeared into the back office and I was glad, because Mrs Cope was irritating me and I wrestled with a desire inappropriate for my situation. I concentrated instead on Dan. He was still over by the notice board, but now writing something in a small black notebook. Jess must have seen me looking.  
"He's my fraternal twin brother," she explained. I flicked my eyes back in her direction. "And an eternal pain in the arse," she added. That broke the tension.  
Mrs Cole returned. "You're all in Biology together first period. Oh and Ness? You’ll be interested to meet your Biology teacher. He was a friend of your cousin’s." I was waiting for the 'and his wife,' bit, but it didn't come. "He's new here too; it's his first semester with us." I knew this already. I’d been warned there was someone here that Edward and Bella knew, Charlie had told me yesterday. I glanced at the name on the sheet. Newton. My mouth fought back a smile as the bell rang for the start of the day.  
We exited the office together and Dan looked at the map of the campus.  
"It's over there," he said, pointing to a low, unassuming building, with a large white number four on the wall. He strode off in the direction of it.  
"Come on," said Jess. "You can be our guide to the American education system. You know how this works."  
I shook my head.  
Her eyes widened. "No?"  
"No. I've been home-schooled up until now. This is my first time in a school." We were both in the same boat, neither of us knowing how this 'worked'.  
"Home-schooled? Really? Cool."  
She expressed an admiration for me that I did not expect and the surprising friendliness from her drew me to her like iron filings to a magnet. She fascinated me! More than anything I really wanted a friend in this strange, alien land of High School and I hoped that Jess would want to be mine. What she did next utterly shocked me and for an instant, I froze. She linked her arm through mine as if we'd been best friends forever and looked me squarely in the eyes. Hers, like her brothers, were a stunning, almost piercing blue.  
"So, she said, with a commanding authority. “Neither one of us has a bloody clue what we're doing. Me, because I'm new to the country and you, because you've never been in a school before. So, I think we should stick together. What do you say?"  
"I say yes!" Wow. I hadn't expected that making friends would be so easy.  
"Great! But you can do the talking, OK? I'm getting thoroughly hacked off with everyone thinking I'm bloody Australian." I gave a shocked laugh and we headed in the direction of Biology.

Meeting each student at the door was a smartly dressed young male teacher.  
“Wow, he’s barely older than us,” said Jess, quietly.  
He certainly did look young, but I knew he was twenty four, as Edward and Bella had graduated from High School at the same time six years ago.  
We stood behind two more students, who he welcomed and directed to their seats, there wasn't going to be a free choice where we sat. One glance inside told me that it was one boy and one girl to a table. The students went in and Mr Newton's eyes fell on me. Just like Mrs Cope, I saw his eyes widen, his mouth fall slightly open and his breath caught.  
"You are the spitting image of Edward Cullen."  
I smiled weakly. "Am I?"  
"Yeah!" He still looked quite stunned. I played dumb, but I knew I did look like Edward. It was hard to disown that fact when the pair of us bore a striking similarity to one another, even down to the same unusual bronze-coloured hair. Whereas my cousin's hair seemed to scarcely go anywhere near a hairbrush, mine cascaded in thick open curls down my back.  
"So how is… Edward?" Mr Newton recovering enough to be polite.  
"Good, thanks."  
"And…?" He scratched his neck. "Is he… still married to Bella?" My teacher's cheeks turned pink, which made me fight back a smile and a strange urge.  
"Yes."  
"Did you know that they were in my class when I was here?"  
"Yes, Mrs Cope told me. Shall I tell them that you said hello?" A cheeky thought occurred to me. I wasn't unaware of Mr Newton's fondness for Bella, Edward had joked about it whilst I was living with them.  
"Yeah. Um… Tell them… Tell them Mike says hello. Newton. Mike Newton."  
"I will. I'm sure I'll speak to them soon. They'll want to know how I'm settling in." I smiled, trying very hard not to flash my teeth at him. I didn't know what was making me do that.  
Yes, I'd mention him to them. It would amuse Edward at least and Bella would no doubt roll her eyes at her husband's ceaseless gloating. It appeared that Mr Newton was still holding a candle for Mrs Cullen and I found that rather sweet, but it was a hopeless case. Edward and Bella were passionately in love with one another. Sharing a small house with them put you in rather close proximity to that love, sometimes too close. There had been occasions when I had wished that the walls had been thicker.  
Mr Newton finally noticed Jess. She was checking out the other students in the class and hadn't bothered one iota that he'd ignored her. He marked her present and pointed out her seat towards the back of the room. He directed me to a seat close to the front, next to a gangly-looking boy who carried on gouging the wood with the point of a pair of compasses.  
From where I was sat it wasn't easy to look around the room, but I glanced about at my fellow students as and when I could. One thing I noted quite plainly, I held not the slightest bit of interest for them. All eyes were on Jess. She was a beacon of oddity in a room of conformity and her lab partner was already looking confused.  
The morning passed uneventfully. Considering that this was my first experience of any school, I was pleased that being home-schooled had prepared me well. There wasn't anything I hadn't covered before and sadly nothing new on the list of the set books issued in my English class. I'd read them all. Jess had read them all too, but she was gleeful that one of the set books was Jane Eyre.  
"You absolutely can't have enough Bronte and Jane Eyre's my favourite. Closely followed by Wuthering Heights, of course."  
I was pleased we had a love of the classics in common. I'd almost learned to read with the books of the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. None of the other teachers commented on my resemblance to Edward, or made any reference to his academic achievement. They either didn't feel it was necessary, or they had arrived at the school in the years since he'd left. I didn't recognise any of the names that Bella and Edward had mentioned and none of my teachers seemed particularly old.  
Where I went through the morning without a second glance from anybody, Jess was the subject of frequent stares and pointed comments. There was something about her that unsettled them. She stuck out and they didn't like it. For her part, Jess seemed oblivious, happy to find that she could keep up with the work. Some of the looks as the morning wore on became quite hostile, but Jess paid no attention and as we broke for lunch she was in no less a cheery mood than she had been at the start of the day.  
I stuck with her. I had no desire to fight my way into one of the large groups of girls in the cafeteria. They reminded me of a pack of wolves on the look-out for weak and defenceless prey. Perhaps they were unsettled by the thought that Jess might make a bid for alpha female status?  
Jess intrigued me. In the snatches of conversation we managed that morning, she very clearly charted her own course in life and didn’t care if she fitted in or not. I liked that spirit very much indeed and I really wanted her to be my friend.  
Moving to Forks had been a big enough thing for me, but coming to school had been even bigger. I'd never done this before and had worried a lot in the days beforehand. Bella had reassured me that I would fit in and she was right, I did. Next to Jess, I looked positively normal.  
We bought food and sat down at an empty table. Sitting opposite her, I took the opportunity to study Jess more closely. Her face was very pale. Only the colour around her yes and on her lips saved her from looking like an overexposed photograph. Her skin was covered by a heavy layer of foundation and she'd made no attempt to be subtle. The sparkles I'd noticed this morning were in the face powder she touched up with before she ate.  
We were quite different. While Jess was immaculately painted, I didn't wear any make-up. Jess's hair was straight. Mine, whatever I did to it, it seemed to naturally gravitate back into ringlets. Even trying to straighten it was ineffective. We were opposites with our eye colour too. My eyes were chocolate brown, the same colour as my mother's had been. Jess's blue eyes looked at odds with the thick rings of black kohl and mascara that outlined them. Even her fingernails were painted back and I wondered why anyone would willingly want their nails to look like they'd gotten trapped in a door? But Jess's choice of sombre attire was at odds with the sparkling personality she radiated. This fish out of water was confident and happy. She was naturally attractive even if she had hidden her natural self beneath heavy make-up and gloomy clothing. She chatted constantly from the second we left our last class before lunch.  
Jess and Dan had arrived in Forks ten days ago from Cumbria in the north of England. Their Dad, Brian, had previously worked for the Lake District National Park and had come to Forks to take up a job in Olympic National Park. He was a specialist in forestry management. Jess said he'd always had a desire to come and work in the States and he was in his element here. Her Mom, or Mum as Jess called her, was called Susie and used to be a Doctor's receptionist before they moved. Jess didn't think her Mum would be getting another job, as her Dad's new job paid so much more.  
"She doesn't need to work now and she's dead pleased about it. So what about you then?" Jess crunched loudly through a large red apple. "How come you ended up stranded in Rainyville?  
"Rainyville?" I laughed.  
"Yeah, haven't you noticed? It does a lot of raining here."  
"I've not been here long enough to know."  
"Trust me. In the ten days we've been here, and bearing in mind that we arrived in the middle of August, this is the first nice day we've had. So when did you arrive?"  
"Sunday."  
"Just two days then? How do you like it?"  
"I've not really had the chance to look around. Yesterday was taken up with getting registered for school and sorting my stuff out."  
"Dan and I have been hanging out in Fredericks, the diner. It's good, a nice, friendly place. You should come out with us."  
"I'd like that."  
"So where are you from?”  
“New Hampshire.”  
"Did your Dad get a job here too?"  
"No. My parents were killed in a car accident last June."  
Jess's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry!”  
"It's OK," I tried to smile but the thought of my parents set my eyes pricking and I fought back tears. I missed them dreadfully and struggled to compose myself.  
"That Biology teacher mentioned your cousin?" Jess tactfully changed the subject.  
"Yes. He and his wife came to this school and it's because of them that I'm here. Edward's father-in-law offered to look after me whilst I did the last two years of school. It was getting to be a bit of a squeeze in the house, with them and a new baby."  
"No other family?"  
I shook my head. "Not that I knew about. My Dad and Edward's Dad had a huge falling out before either of us were born and Edward's Dad moved to Chicago. Edward's parents died too when he was only young and he was adopted. When my parents died, the authorities managed to trace Edward and he agreed to be my guardian. I went to live with him and Bella, but the whole teenager, small baby and two adults in a tiny house thing didn’t work. Charlie, Bella's Dad, he's the Chief of Police here, offered to have me come stay with him and his partner Sue."  
"That's kind of them."  
"Yeah. I'm a long way from home though, as much a fish out of water as you are. This isn't New England."  
"Ditto. This isn't England. We really should stick together."  
I smiled. "I'd like that."  
"And you get on with them OK? Charlie and Sue, I mean?"  
"It's early days."  
Dan came over and sat down next to his sister, picking a slice of pizza off her plate. "Somebody wants to start a band,” he said. “I saw a poster in the office earlier. I’ve just spoken to them and it could be a go-er."  
"Great." Jess speared a carrot stick into her mayonnaise. "Is there room for a keyboard player?"  
"I don't know, I'm meeting up with them tonight at the car repair place. They hire some space there to rehearse in. Why don't you come down too?"  
"Think I will."  
"You both play instruments?" I asked.  
They both nodded.  
"Dan plays guitar and I play piano and keyboards. Do you play?"  
"A little of each. My father tried to teach me the piano, but I wasn't that interested. He plays really well. Oh sorry, played really well." I winced at the slip. "I keep forgetting." I placed my elbow on the table and pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. Jess reached over and rubbed my arm.  
"It takes time to adjust." She said. "There's nothing wrong with thinking your Dad's still alive. I'm sure he is, if there's a heaven."  
I smiled at her "Thanks. I'm sorry. I just miss them so much." I pictured them in my head, thinking of the last time I'd seen them, both waving from the car as they drove off into the night. It still hurt so much.  
"So has she bored you rigid about them yet?" Dan bit off a truly enormous mouthful of pizza, which he struggled to chew.  
I furrowed my brow. "Bored me rigid about who?"  
"You've not mentioned them?" He mumbled with difficulty at his sister. "I'm stunned."  
Jess rolled her eyes, stuck her elbow on the table and held her hand out towards me.  
"Ness was just telling me about her parents dying, which is why she's stuck in this hole in the first place. Honestly Dan, do you think I have no tact?"  
Dan finished his mouthful and swallowed it with difficulty. I could almost see it going down his oesophagus.  
"It's rare that you do, you usually launch straight into it as the first topic of conversation. It's usually up right up there with 'Hello, I'm Jess." He turned to look at me. "I hope you like vampires," he gestured his right thumb at his sister, "'cause she's obsessed with them." Jess smiled weakly as if he'd acknowledged some gross failing in her. "Personally speaking," Dan continued, "I think they’d be the most boring creatures on the planet."  
I laughed. Dan took another bite of pizza and chewed, indicating with his forefinger that he was going to continue. He swallowed and took a sip of Jess's Coke. She didn't appear to mind. "What vampires want you to believe, is that it's all about sex and blood and power and…whatever." He batted it away as an irrelevance. "But really, all it is an elaborate front to hide a deep desire to choose wallpaper and matching curtains in Home Depot."  
Jess rolled her eyes at her brother, but I was laughing, imagining vampires choosing wallpaper in Home Depot and finding it a surprisingly easy thing to do.  
"As if!" Jess snapped. "They can't come out during the day, so unless it's a twenty four hour store that's hardly going to happen. What would they need with curtains anyway? They live in coffins."  
"Ah," Dan wagged his finger at her. "That's what they want you to think, but actually they live in little country cottages with roses growing around the door. And they have prize begonias."  
"No they don't." Jess scoffed.  
I chuckled at this imagined picture of vampire domesticity.  
"Do they bake cakes too?" I asked.  
His eyes lit up as he seized on the game. "Yes! They may give you the idea they’re craving blood, but it's really a nice Battenberg they want."  
I sniggered.  
"And they go mad for fresh bread,” he added. “They can't get enough of the stuff."  
Jess tutted and rolled her eyes at her brother.  
"So you like vampires?" I asked of her.  
She was instantly attentive. "Like them? I'm obsessed by them." She emphasized the word, drawing it in to her like a possession. "Do you?"  
My answer, it was clear, would determine whether we could still be friends.  
"I don't mind them." I replied.  
"You don't mind them?" She was shocked by my ambivalence. She leaned forward towards me, "But Ness; they're so dark and thrilling and dangerous and sexy. How can you not be drawn to that?" She mouthed every adjective specifically and finished by rolling her eyes in ecstasy.  
Dan appraised his sister, rolling his eyes in resignation. "Pathetic," he tutted.  
Jess suddenly looked bright-eyed and excitedly at me.  
"What are you doing after school?"  
I shook my head. "Nothing."  
"Can I come round to yours?"  
Charlie and Sue would both be out at work. I nodded my head. "Yes."  
"I shall introduce you to Alric and have you obsessed with vampires by teatime."  
Dan looked at me with pity and shook his head slowly. "Good luck Ness." He attempted to take another slice of his sister's pizza, Jess smacked his hand away.

xXXx

 

I was alone in the house for only a few minutes before I saw Jess arriving. She was on foot as didn't have a car yet and on her hip was bulging bag of DVDs. I watched her from the kitchen window as she walked up the path and smartly rapped on the door. I let her in.  
"There are definite advantages to finishing so early in the afternoon," she panted, "you have much more time to watch stuff TV." She didn't wait to be asked, she just made her way through to the living room and dumped the bag on the sofa, flopping down heavily beside it. "I'm pooped!"  
"Coffee?" I asked, leaning up against the door jamb, again in awe of the ease with which she made herself at home. Jess nodded eagerly.  
I poured us both some coffee and brought it back through. Jess was already working out which TV channel the DVD played through. This must be a Jess thing. All other English people I knew were too polite to help themselves to your home electronics without asking.  
"This is my favourite," she said, waving a box at me, I set the mugs down on the coffee table. "I'm completely in love with Alric. He's just… oh!" Her hand flew to her chest. She dropped the first disc into the tray, pressed close and scooted back to the couch beside me, taking a big loud slurp of coffee. I stared at her a fraction too long and her eyes met mine.  
"What?"  
I shook my head. "You're very…" I didn't know how to phrase it. I tried again. "You're not very… English?"  
Jess snickered. "You mean I don't talk posh, sit quietly and have manners?"  
"Sort of." I didn't want to imply that she was rude. I just hadn't met anyone as different as she was.  
"I'm northern. We're a different breed to your average Brit. More forthright and have a very relaxed attitude to life." As if to demonstrate that, she put her feet up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. She laughed and took them off again.  
The DVD worked through its notices and the menu revealed a blonde couple entwined around each other. The woman was human, the man was, I assumed, a vampire. He didn't look superhuman though he just looked ill. It would be hard not to miss someone who was such an unattractive blue-grey dead colour.  
Jess selected the first episode and settled back onto the sofa. We met Alric, a thousand year old vampire who, while out hunting for a meal in a forest, happened upon a young human girl, Christianne, who he finds (naturally) very attractive. Alric was tall, slim and to complement his repulsive blue-gray skin, he had a head full of matted blond hair and dressed as if he'd just climbed out of a dumpster. He managed to conquer his desire to kill the girl and plucked up the courage to speak to her. She, in a stunning disregard for her own safety and her parents' warnings not to talk to strangers – especially ones that look like they're suffering from rigor mortis – chatted quite happily with him. By the end of the episode he'd confessed to being a vampire but she didn't care, because she was already head over heels in love with him. I looked at Jess. Was this supposed to be a comedy? Obviously not as Jess had a vacant, dreamy look about her which got worse when I looked back at the screen and found Christianne and Alric kissing. The episode mercifully ended and Jess turned to me expectantly.  
"What did you think? Isn't he just absolutely gorgeous?"  
"He's a bit rough."  
"That's all part of the charm, he's wild!" I didn't offer any further comment and Jess took my silence to mean that I wasn't averse to watching another episode. This one was better; we actually got a hint that Alric was dangerous, when he turned on another man who was sweet on Christianne. The sight of Alric sinking his fangs into the man's jugular was not a sight I could easily watch and I shifted my gaze beyond the TV and fixed it on the new photograph of Edward, Bella and their baby daughter Renesmee that was propped up on the mantelpiece. They had given it to Charlie at the weekend. I looked at the happy little family until I was sure the scene was over, swallowing hard against an unpleasant feeling that rose up within me.  
Predictably, having killed off his rival he went and sought out Christianne and charmed her into bed. Jess sighed even more devotedly and I couldn't bear to look at Edward and Bella this time, so I examined the cracks in the ceiling on the far side of the room. Charlie would need to get those sorted.  
Jess played a third episode, commenting pointedly on Alric's fabulous body during yet another love scene and justifying how he really was the most desirable man on the planet. I really couldn’t see it. How could she like a man, who gave the impression that the last time he'd changed his clothes was during the Civil War?  
At exactly the time Alric was sinking his fangs into another victim, with Christianne clearly blind to what he was sneaking off to do, Charlie arrived home. Jess was oblivious to his arrival, but I watched his face as he came into the living room and saw what was on the TV. Charlie was immediately edgy.  
"What the hell are you watching!" His voice conveyed his full authority as Police Chief.  
Jess jumped up, shocked by his unexpected presence.  
"What is it?" He snapped.  
"Vampire Nights," Jess replied.  
"I’ve never heard of it. Is it suitable for you to watch?"  
"It's a 15." Jess replied.  
"A what?"  
"Oh… um, that's British rating. I don't know what it would be here, but it's classed as suitable for people over 15."  
"Really?" Charlie conveyed his scepticism over that statement. "That's on British TV?"  
"It's made in America."  
"Is it?" His displeasure finally came to the attention of Jess and she pressed the stop button. There was an awkward silence and Jess looked at her watch.  
"I'd better go." She ejected the disk from the player and gathered her things together while I remained exactly where I was sat. I'd barely been in the house forty-eight hours and I was already in trouble. "Are you going to come down to the garage tonight and see this band?"  
I looked at Charlie. This probably wasn't the best time to be asking things like this. "I um… don't know."  
"Band?" Charlie was still annoyed.  
"Yeah, my brother Dan is going to meet up with some guys from school who rehearse at Black's Auto Repair. I wondered if Ness wanted to come too?"  
"I heard about them. The owner of the repair shop is a friend of mine. Ness, I asked him and his father to stop by this evening to meet you."  
"OK." I would have to stick around for that. There’d be no skipping off early for me.  
"We'll see," Charlie said giving Jess a hard stare. He walked out of the living room to hang up his jacket and gun holster.  
Jess exhaled. "Sorry. Guess he doesn't like vampires?"  
I shrugged my shoulders "I'll try and see you later."  
"I hope I haven't got you into trouble." Jess looked sad. "That's the last thing I'd want for you. I'm sure stuff's shit enough right now without him being on your back."  
"We'll see." This was certainly not a great start.  
"If I don't see you later, I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" I nodded and walked with her to the door, watching as she bounced down the path and jogged off down the road.  
I walked into the kitchen where Charlie was pouring coffee. He turned around to look at me. His eyebrows were raised in questioning.  
"Tell me that wasn't your idea of something fun to watch?"  
I shook my head. "No. Jess is into vampires, she was introducing me to her favourite show."  
"Jess is into Vampires." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.  
I might as well get it all out. "She's obsessed with them."  
"That doesn't sound good." He looked me straight in the eye. "Is this wise?" He leant back on the kitchen table, placing his coffee behind him and folding his arms. "Ness, you need to be careful. Maybe this girl isn't the right person to hang around with."  
"But she's my friend," I wailed. I couldn't give her up already.  
"You've only been in school a day, you'll make other friends."  
"I can handle it!"  
"Can you?"  
I nodded. "Yes!" I tried to imitate Jess's self-confidence, it didn't translate well.  
"That was pretty gory stuff. I'm not sure I'm happy you watching that. You're still very young."  
"I am seventeen next week! Besides, it's not real, it's just TV."  
Charlie scoffed. "I hope so." He took a deep breath. "Ness, you coming here is a big deal for me. I don't want anything to mess that up." He sighed and shook his head, smirking.  
"What?"  
"It's like history repeating itself but with a subtle twist." The smirk widened into a broad grin. It was good to see a smile on his face.  
The phone rang. He stepped over to the wall and picked up the receiver.  
"Hello," he answered cheerfully. "Hey Bella, how are you? I'm good thanks. Yes she's right here." He handed the receiver to me. "Bella," he said pointedly.  
"Hi Bella!" I was excited to talk to her.  
"Oh you're gonna love this one Bells," Charlie said in the background, laughing. "Tell her, Ness."  
I kicked away a chair from the table and sat down. I had an idea that this would be a long conversation.


	2. Secrets and Lies

As the clock struck six, I glanced out of the kitchen window to see Sue pulling onto the drive as she returned from work. Seconds later a large, black pick-up truck drew up outside the house, closely followed by a small red car. From the red car jumped a boy I'd seen at school earlier that day. He was holding a large insulated bag.  
"Pizza's here," I called to Charlie. He was watching a sports channel and heard the sofa creak as he got up off it. I glanced up again and saw Sue talking to an incredibly tall man by the pick-up. He was Native American, perhaps of the of the Quileute tribe who lived down on the coastal reservation at La Push. He had short, dark hair and underneath his close-fitting grey t-shirt, you could see an impressive musculature. While he was talking to Sue, he was opening a wheelchair, presumably for the man who was sitting in the passenger seat. These must be Charlie's friends.  
Charlie paid the pizza delivery guy and left the door open, bringing the three large boxes through to the kitchen. Sue and the two men came through the door chatting loudly and confidently, the way firm friends do. I put the marker in my book, closed it and rose from my seat to greet them. Sue bustled into the kitchen and smiled at me, pecking Charlie on the lips as she passed him. Behind her the tall man, perhaps the tallest man I'd ever seen, pushed his father through the doorway into the kitchen, ducking down under the door frame as he did so. They both smiled at me but said nothing. There was an awkward silence and I looked at Charlie for reassurance. The other men looked at him too and he looked momentarily confused.  
"Oh yeah… Introductions." Charlie cleared his throat and Sue rolled her eyes in amusement. "Nessie, this is… um, my good friend Billy Black and his son Jacob. Jake," he corrected. "Billy, Jake, this is Edward's cousin Vanessa, but everyone calls her Nessie. Ness. She's gonna live with us until she finishes High School." There was another awkward silence.  
Billy's brow furrowed. "Is that it?"  
His son's face broke into a grin.  
Charlie shrugged. "Yeah? Why? Is there anything more I need to say? It's not as if you don't know who she is."  
"Charlie," said Billy, his tone serious. "This is no time to be flippant. You know what's at stake here."  
Charlie sighed. "I was hoping that in private things could be a little more relaxed."  
"In time maybe," replied Billy. "But let's stick to the story. Now, do I smell pizza?" Billy beamed at me.  
Anyone the least bit curious about my story and so inclined to search for information, would uncover an unremarkable life. I was born nearly seventeen years ago on September 11th to Jack and Elizabeth Masen in Littleton, New Hampshire; a small city in the north west of the state, close to the border with Vermont. Known as Nessie to my parents, we lived a life of quiet normality, until June this year, when a drunk driver on the I-93 ended my parents' lives, as they were travelling home from a weekend in Concord.  
Being only sixteen, the authorities made a search for any possible family and found my cousin, Edward Cullen, living with his wife Bella and new baby daughter, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I went to live with them, but the three of us and baby Renesmee, living in a small house and falling over one another, just didn't work out. Bella's Dad offered to look after me whilst I finished up High School and only two days previously, I had moved in with Charlie Swan and his partner Sue Clearwater.  
Amongst my things now located in what had been Bella's room, was a stack of photograph albums. My Mom had been a dedicated archivist of our life. A life that had been cruelly ripped away from me and now I was starting all over again, in a new town, with new people and on the other side of the country. I'd pinned the news clippings about their death and the obituaries from the local paper onto the notice board. I'd littered the surfaces with a stack of nick-knacks taken from the house to remind me of them. I was still grieving and although some people might find it macabre, I found it a comfort to have the clippings around me, just in case I should ever forget them. Not that I ever would of course, they were my parents and I loved them deeply.  
Nessie, September 11th and being related to Edward Cullen were the only truths in an intricately woven and meticulously assembled pack of lies. The truth about who I was and what I was doing in Forks were things only a few people were aware of. Those who knew, and that included all the people in Charlie and Sue's kitchen, were charged with preserving the secret of it. My story and the evidence for it had been planned and generated with their full knowledge and even Charlie, Forks Chief of Police, was a willing accomplice in this fraud. It had been his idea.  
Charlie really wanted to spend time with me while he could. For that to happen without arousing too much suspicion, I couldn’t be here in the capacity of who I truly was. My family had been in agreement with Charlie's wishes and their talents and resources had been expertly deployed in constructing a watertight new identity for me. There wasn't a birth certificate, a photograph, a newspaper clipping or an online obituary out of place. I was Nessie Masen and I could prove that I was Nessie Masen. But I had only been Nessie Masen from the moment I stepped out of the car on Sunday. Up until then, I had been Nessie Cullen.  
The fact that I bore a striking resemblance to my cousin, owed less to him being my cousin and more to him being my father. Put me next to his wife, Bella, and you'd see a stunning degree of similarity there too. Not unremarkable, given that she was my mother. There was also a great deal of me in the photograph of the baby girl on the mantelpiece, because she and I are the same girl. I am Edward and Bella Cullen's daughter and I am Charlie Swan's granddaughter. The photograph on the mantelpiece was taken six years ago and believe me, when I say, there is a whole bucket-load of odd about me that is being kept from the people of Forks and for good reason. According to the X-Files, the truth may indeed be out there, but it won't be getting out if everyone sticks to the story. Billy was right to insist that Charlie adhered to it.  
Billy and Jake are not strangers to me, I have known them all my life and it was odd being introduced to people that I knew so well. Jake assisted at my birth and there have been few days since then when we haven't been together. He is my best friend.  
Jake has never left this area, so here is another lie about my past: I didn't arrive from Massachusetts on Sunday. I arrived from a house located three miles north of Forks. I have been to New Bedford, Massachusetts and to Littleton, New Hampshire, but only as part of researching my new life. I've travelled and visited many places, but I've never lived anywhere but Forks. Not that anyone would have seen me before. My family lived a quiet life and kept themselves to themselves.  
As was right and proper in this charade, I got to know Billy and Jake over the pizzas that the five of us shared. They, in turn, got to know me. Sue told us about her day at work and said that she'd met Jess and Dan's Mom, Susie, when she'd come to register at the Doctor's office. Sue described her as 'blonde and a little ditzy'. Charlie said her daughter looked much the same and could not resist commenting on what he'd found Jess and I watching when he got home.  
"The girl's obsessed with vampires," he said, referring to Jess.  
"Interesting choice of friend." Jake grinned  
"Like mother like daughter," Charlie retorted. I could tell he'd been itching to make that comment all evening and it received the groaning reaction he was hoping for.  
With dinner done, Charlie, Billy and Sue moved through to the living room. Billy and Charlie watched the baseball while Sue used the time to settle down to her cross stitch. In the kitchen, Jake and I loaded up the dishwasher and set it going. After I'd done that, Charlie said I could go back into town to meet up with my friends and Jake said he'd give me a ride down there as he had a job to finish up. He'd call back for Billy later when he dropped me home.  
When Mr Dowling, the previous owner of the garage had retired three years ago, my Dad and Jake had gone into business together and bought the garage. They'd renamed it Black's Auto Repair. Dad was very much the silent partner, it was Jake's business and under him it was thriving. Unlike Mr Dowling, Jake priced his repairs competitively and nobody needed to take their cars to Port Angeles anymore, therefore there was always a steady stream of work.  
Jake was brilliant with cars, he could fix anything. Cars were a big part of my family's life and I'd spent many hours at home over the years, watching or helping Jake, Dad or Aunt Rose while they poured over the engines of their various vehicles. They were all as keen to pass on their skills to me as I was keen to learn and I was quite the skilled car mechanic now. I was also skilled in getting as grubby as possible and Jake aided and abetted me at every turn. There had been many occasions where I'd been physically manhandled in at the end of the day by Mom or Dad and deposited, sometimes fully clothed, into a hot, soapy bath. Momma called me her little muck monster. I couldn't keep myself clean and with Jake around that was doubly difficult. We had an entire peninsula as our back yard and I couldn't be out in it without getting grubby, wet or frequently, both.

"You're supposed to go over rivers not through them, Nessie." Momma had lamented one evening as she was bathing me. Jake and I had spent one summer's afternoon splashing about in the Sol Duc River.  
"Jake needed a wash; he was covered in berry juice." I’d said, wincing in annoyance as Momma rubbed the shampoo through my hair. I wasn't overly fond of getting clean again.  
"And how did he get covered with berry juice?"  
"He wouldn't eat them, so I made him wear them."  
"Nessie, that’s not a nice thing to do."  
"He thought it was funny, he was barking."  
Momma sighed, she couldn't win this one. As she washed my hair, I'd placed a soapy hand on her cheek.

Jake parked his truck outside the garage and we got out. The garage and Fredericks were next to each other on the main road through Forks. I could hear the sound of music coming from inside. OK, so maybe calling it music was being slightly generous, it was a wailing guitar. We walked around to a back door and I pushed it open. In the corner of the large space were a set of drums, a keyboard and three amplifiers. Dan and Jess were already there and as I stepped through the door, Jess ran to meet me.  
"You came!" she enthused. "Looks like I'm in!"  
"Brilliant!" I replied. She was so excited; it would be unfair not to respond equally positively. Jake stepped through the doorway and stood up. I bit my lip in amusement as Jess took in, with shock, his full height and I saw her eyes widen. She looked at me questioningly and I introduced my companion. "This is Jake Black, the owner of the garage. He gave me a lift down here. Jake, this is my friend, Jess Taylor."  
"Pleased to meet you," said Jake, holding out one of his enormous hands for Jess to shake, which she did, somewhat confusedly, as if Jake was some impossible mathematical concept she was trying to get her head around. "I've not seen you here before, are you in the band?"  
"I am now, I just joined."  
"That's a weird accent. Ness told me on the way down that you're English?"  
"Yes, I'm sure I'll soon pick up lots of Washington weirdness to mask it." There she was again, ultra-confident with everyone. I liked that about her.  
Jake turned to me. "I'll give you a ride back to Charlie's after you're done. I'm going to finish up a job."  
I watched Jake lope off into the front workshop. Jess stared after him as he went.  
"He's huge," she said quietly, "and hot; in both senses of the word."  
"What?" I furrowed my brow.  
"Well he's physically hot, his hand felt like he was running a temperature and he's definitely hot." She waggled her eyebrows. I furrowed my brow even more. Her eyebrows stopped jiggling up and down and remained firmly elevated.  
"Don't tell me you don't know what I mean by that? I'm sure I've heard it being used here. You know…" she tailed off, but no, I didn't know. My face must have conveyed it. "Ripped, buff, attractive, dishy, drop dead gorgeous?"  
"Oh." I could say no more. She found him attractive? I turned that over in my head and it didn't make sense. Jake was… Jake. He was my best friend, I couldn't think of him being attractive, it seemed wrong. I dismissed the thought entirely.  
"No?" Jess questioned. "He's not your type?"  
"No," I said hesitantly. "He's not my type."  
"What's your type, then?"  
I shook my head in slight confusion; it wasn't something I'd ever considered. "I don't think I have one."  
"Well, there's plenty of time to discover one. Come and meet the others."  
Jess pulled me over to where Dan and two other guys were.  
"This is Ness,” she said. “She's new to Forks too. This is Ricky Scott," she indicated to a tall, skinny guy with lank dark straight hair that fell over one eye. "He plays drums." Ricky gave a small wave. "And this is Zak Foster, he plays bass."  
"Hi there." Zak replied, he was equally as lean as Ricky, but blessed with a mop of tightly curled red hair and more freckles than skin. "Can you sing?"  
"Yes."  
"Wanna it a go?" Zak pointed to the microphone adjacent to me.  
"OK." I loved to sing, this could be fun. "Sing what?"  
"Do you know anything by Foo Fighters?"  
I nodded. “Pretty much everything.”  
Zak smiled and handed me a lyric sheet to The Pretender. How apt, I thought.  
"Ok, shall we try this?" He asked the rest of them. Ricky seated himself behind the drum kit, Jess went and stood behind her keyboards and Dan pulled a guitar strap over his head. I stood behind the microphone and looked at the blank brick wall of the workshop ahead of me. Our only audience was Jake, and he was next door in the front part of the shop. If I messed up there would be precious few witnesses. There could be none entirely if I decided it.  
"OK!" called Ricky, "After four. He tapped his drumsticks together four times and something that sounded like proper music came out of Ricky, Zak, Dan and Jess's instruments. I sang my heart out to the wall and I hope the bricks appreciated it.  
Four minutes later, as the last notes died away, my head returned to the reality of being in a car repair shop in Forks. I dare not turn around, fearful of what the others might say. Did I sound OK? Was it what they expected, or wanted? Did they like me? It was Ricky who broke the silence.  
"That was fucking awesome." A small laugh of relief burst through my lips, but I still didn't turn around.  
"I agree," said Zak. "You're in if you wanna be."  
"Yay!" Jess shouted. I turned around to find four other faces with big smiles on them.  
"Zak," said Ricky. "I think we've finally got ourselves a band." The two guys high-fived each other over the drums and Jess skipped over and hugged me. I threw my arms around her and embraced her too, being very careful not to let my relief of being accepted by this group of people accidentally result in hugging Jess to death. From the corner of my eye I saw movement. I raised my head to see Jake in the doorway of the workshop. He smiled and gave me the thumbs up. I smiled back at him.  
"Let's do some more," shouted Zak.  
In the end we played for another hour. There were a couple of songs that I didn't know but I could look them up when I got home. We packed away and the five of us decamped to Fredericks, where Ricky ordered a celebratory round of hot chocolate for everyone and half a dozen blueberry muffins. We took up residence in the corner, on red plastic overstuffed benches and chatted animatedly until the waitress brought over the drinks and the muffins. Silence fell, as five sets of mouths turned their attention to eating. The muffins were delicious. Or maybe it wasn't the muffin I was sensing, but the sweet taste of everything being right with the world. I was accepted, I fitted in and I had friends - I was thrilled about that. I could do this. I was doing this. More than anything I wanted to be a normal teenage girl and do things that normal teenage girls did.  
I'd spent so long dreaming about this and trying to imagine what it would be like, but it wasn't even half way through week one and my life had veered off and taken a route I'd have never expected. It was good though, exciting! The ubiquitous cautions of my family in those last few days before my 'arrival' in Forks came back to me: 'Be careful Nessie.' Oh I would be careful, but I'd have some fun too. That's what normal teenage girls did, yes?  
As we chatted, I found out more about Ricky and Zak. They were in twelfth grade and had been trying to put together a band for the best part of a year; but the student body of Forks High School were more concerned with sports than with music.  
It was clear from listening to Dan speak that he was as obsessed about music as Jess was about vampires. He spoke with an eloquence and passion that impressed both Zak and Ricky. The two of them had a great deal in common with the strangely spoken lad from northern England. Jess didn't really have any musical favourites other than Tori Amos, who Dan commented was, 'as mad as a box of frogs,' an expression Zak, Ricky and I hadn't heard before and which made us laugh loudly.  
As the clock approached ten, Jake came into the diner and our fledging nameless band disbanded for the evening. I kept a lid on my enthusiasm until Jake and I were a safe distance away, bowling down the road in his truck. Then I just couldn't keep it in anymore.  
"I'm in a band!" I exclaimed. "Can you believe that? Did I sound OK?"  
Jake looked at me perplexed. "Did you sound OK? Nessie you're pitch-perfect, of course you sounded OK." He rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.  
"No, but did I sound right. You know?" I searched for the right term and hit on the only one I could think of. "Did I… rock?"  
Jake beamed at me. "You rocked, big time. I think Ricky said that clear enough."  
"I need to listen to tons of new stuff." I said, almost jumping in my seat and listing the bands that had cropped up in the conversation this evening.  
Jake wrinkled his nose. "I haven't heard many of those. So what's the band called?"  
I shook my head. "It doesn't have a name yet."  
"It's very important for a band to have a great name."  
"I'm sure one will come up," I said  
"How about Bella and the Cullens?"  
I pulled a face. "Jake, that's terrible."  
He looked a little put out. "I thought it was a good name for a band."  
"OK," I said, looking to bolster his feelings. "I'll throw it into the mix when the time comes.  
Jake dropped me back at the house and I shared my news with the rest of them. They gave it qualified support, followed by the inevitable comment from Charlie.  
"Just be careful," he cautioned.  
"Why?" I guessed I’d be asking that question a lot from now on.  
"Those guys are older than you."  
"By a year."  
"By some margin. All I'm saying is, don't fall in with the wrong crowd." I looked at him with a smirk on my face. He realised what he'd said and rolled his eyes.  
"Point taken," he said. I kissed and hugged him.  
"I'll be careful, I promise."  
"It's all I'm asking Nessie."  
I got ready for bed and read for a while. I fired off a few text messages to my parents and others telling them my news. Momma replied almost instantly saying the same as Charlie, 'Be careful!' Other replies said much the same. They were concerned about me, I knew that and it was understandable given my situation. But from first impressions, Jess and Dan seemed OK and Ricky and Zak appeared to be pretty nice guys. I didn't see what the worry was about. They hadn't met them, they didn't know them and I couldn't go running to Momma every five minutes to ask for advice, I had to make these decisions for myself. Surely they could trust me to judge a person's character? Did they think danger lurked in the corridors of Forks High School? They had to admit that it was a lot less dangerous than it used to be.

The next day, the five of us met up at lunch and picked up the conversation right where we'd left off last night. Ricky handed me a CD.  
"I burned some of my favourite stuff." He said.  
"Thanks! That's really great of you."  
"There's more where that came from, I'll do some more. Save you the expense of having to download them all."  
"Thank you." I looked at the track listing, I'd not heard of any of the artists, this would be interesting to listen to.  
Tuesday and Thursday were agreed to be rehearsal nights and Zak mentioned a venue in Port Angeles that championed new bands. He was going to try and get us on the bill, to give us something to aim for. Dan asked about song writing and whether he could bring some of the stuff he'd been working on. Ricky was enthusiastic about that.  
"Do you write, Ness?" He asked when Zak and Dan were deep in conversation.  
"It's not something I've ever tried to do. Do you?"  
He nodded. "Zak writes lyrics. I'm better at the music."  
"Do you write?" I asked Jess, she nodded. Dan interrupted.  
"She writes pappy love songs to vampires, you really don't want to hear them, they're vomit-worthy."  
"And not everyone marches to the beat of left wing politics either," Jess snapped.  
"It's more relevant than singing about cloud-cuckooland."  
"Do you two always bicker?" Zak chuckled. "You're like an old married couple."  
"Not always," Jess sassed, "Sometimes I lunge at this throat with a knife." She smacked her brother none too playfully around the back of the head. She made me laugh and wish that I had a sister too.  
Walking out of the cafeteria to our afternoon class, Ricky caught up to me.  
"How are you liking Forks?"  
"It's OK, I'm settling in."  
"I was sorry to hear about your parents. That sucks."  
"Thanks. Yes it does. It's getting a little easier though."  
"So, other than the band, what do you do?" He fell into step beside me.  
"Study?" I laughed. I knew that wasn't what he meant. "I don't do anything else."  
"Sports?"  
"Um… No. Unless you count watching baseball with Charlie."  
"Charlie?"  
"Um… Chief Swan," I corrected.  
"Oh yeah. You live with the Police Chief."  
"I do."  
"No putting a foot out of line then?" Ricky smiled and brushed his hair out of his eyes.  
"I guess not."  
"Um… Do you… Do you date?" I stopped dead. The last vestiges of preconceived ideas I'd had about how school would work out, were now firmly out the window. Nothing was going the way I'd imagined it. I'd stupidly not discussed dating with my parents. I was on my own here. Did I date? My head scrabbled for purchase momentarily and then clunked squarely into logic. Be logical Nessie. How would a normal teenage girl respond to this? Would a normal teenage girl date? Of course she would.  
"Yes."  
"Well… um… Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?"  
Ricky seemed a nice enough guy, what was the harm in it?  
"OK."  
His face broke out into a smile. "Friday?"  
"Ah, I can't do Friday, sorry. I'm having dinner with a family friend."  
"Saturday then?"  
That seemed OK, I couldn't think of anything on my calendar. "Yes, Saturday's good."  
"Ok. How about Port Angeles?"  
I nodded.  
"There are several restaurants,” he said. “What's your favourite type of food?"  
I grinned and didn't say it. "I like pretty much anything,” I said instead. “You choose."  
"Italian?"  
"Italian's good." The concourse was emptying, class was about to start and we would be late. Ricky noticed.  
"We'd better go. Fix up a time later?" I nodded and he backed away, smiling. No, perhaps almost grinning.  
I watched him go for a second, before I hurried to my English class and sat down just as Mr Hodson started talking.  
"Where've you been?" Jess hissed.  
"Taking to Ricky."  
"What about?"  
"Food."  
"Oh." She sounded unimpressed.  
"He asked me out to dinner."  
She grabbed my arm, "No way!" she exclaimed. I flashed a look at Mr Hodson but he was writing something on the board and was seemingly unaware or uninterested. "Flipping heck, he doesn't hang about. Do you like him?"  
"He seems OK. I know him as well as you do."  
"I'm not surprised, though. He did look a bit like a rabbit in the headlights when he saw you come through the door at Black’s last night."  
"What?" I queried. I hadn't noticed anything.  
"Miss Masen and Miss Taylor, I would be grateful if you would pay attention!" Mr Hodson's voice curtailed our conversation. I spent the rest of the lesson wondering why I hadn't noticed a guy looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. I was completely distracted by that thought for the rest of the day.

At rehearsal that night, Dan said he wanted to check out the music venue Zak had mentioned. That quickly turned into a whole band outing on Saturday night. The dinner date became Saturday lunch and was all the better for it as Charlie and Sue were both scheduled to work this Saturday, so there would be no need to answer awkward questions. I could say I was going into Port Angeles with the band. I need not tell them about Ricky.  
I didn't want to discuss it with Jake or my parents either. I didn't want the chorus of 'be careful' and I didn't want Ricky's entire life combed through to see if he was a suitable friend for me. Jess had narrowly escaped that course of action earlier in the week. Surely, part of the experience of living here was to start making my own decisions. Dad and Momma were on the other side of the country and I had to learn to stand on my own two feet. In that, there was no time like the present.  
Just before noon on Saturday, Ricky picked me up in his car, a rather battered old Honda Civic. He drove to Port Angeles and parked close to the music venue which was on the outskirts of town and we set off for the centre. We chatted easily, he was fun to be with and wasn't overly curious about my family, although I was prepared with my story if he was. Having your parents die seemed to be a natural barrier to people asking about them. He kept the conversation to neutral territory; films, books and music, endlessly music.  
We arrived at La Bella Italia. It was busy with lots of families enjoying Saturday lunch and I hoped he'd made a reservation. The host approached us, a young man who radiated boredom from every pore.  
"Do you have a reservation?" he drawled, as if we couldn't possibly have done anything so organised.  
"Yes, the name's Scott," Ricky replied. The host checked the list, ticked us off and seated us at a small table in the middle of what was going to feel like eating in the middle of a children's play area. Would Ricky ask for another table? The host handed us our menus and Ricky said nothing other than thank you. No he wasn't. But I was; I didn't want to sit here. I unleashed part of me that up until now had been kept firmly under wraps and for it I kept my face strictly averted from Ricky, focusing my attention on the host.  
"Excuse me?" I began. The host turned back and I saw his eyes widen in response to what he saw and I knew that I had him captivated. He would be putty in my hands. "Perhaps another table, please?" I flashed him a wide smile. "One that's a little more private?"  
"Of course, ma'am, this way please." Ricky rose from his seat, confused. We followed the host to the opposite side of the restaurant where there was a single unoccupied booth. I thanked him and Ricky and I settled into our new seats.  
"This is better." I approved.  
"Why didn't they show us to this one first?"  
"They didn't think we'd mind, people settle for less these days. A man would have once paid handsomely to get a better table on a date. But that's a thing of the past now." That was, unless you showed up at a restaurant with my Dad. He was a stickler for good tables. "Money didn't change hands though, I just batted my eyelashes at him," I grinned.  
"Some eyelashes,” Ricky smiled. “Maybe it's Maybelline?"  
"Maybe it's Chanel."  
"You're high maintenance?"  
"No, I just like the best," I laughed lightly. If only he really knew.  
We settled into perusing the menu and I chose ricotta cannelloni. Ricky went for that too. While we waited, we worked our way through the breadsticks. The food was good and after a leisurely lunch we spent the afternoon perusing the stores in Port Angeles, paying special attention to the music store. Ricky came alive in there and he enthusiastically rifled through album after album, pointing out which were the best ones to listen to. I stood back and took it all in, letting him talk. His head was a mine of information about popular music and I soaked it all up like a sponge. Just like Jess, he was easy to be with.  
At one point I looked at him and sadness gripped me. If he really knew me he would not be quite so at ease, or possibly here at all. But he was and that must mean that I was doing a very good job of keeping that bit of me hidden.  
Later, as we were walking to the music venue, our hands brushed together and he took the opportunity to take hold of mine. I was surprised how natural it felt. I don't know what I was expecting, sparks perhaps?  
We arrived to find a large number of people already standing in line. The neon sign above the entrance said, The Shed. It was perfectly named, it looked exactly like one.  
Dan, Jess and Zak were at the back of the line, having just arrived. Dan's eyebrows flew up when he saw us hand in hand. Jess must not have told him the news. Jess herself was anxious to talk, so I loosed hands from Ricky and we put a little distance between us and the boys, so she could quiz me on our afternoon. I told her all about it and she seemed thrilled, although I didn't deliver what she really wanted to know.  
"He didn't try to snog you?" Her British vernacular amused me.  
"No?" Should he have done I wondered? I really should ask my Mom about dating. Were there rules I needed to follow? Perhaps I could Google it.  
"I thought he might have tried. Maybe American men are more reserved. British lads would have their tongues down your throat in less than half an hour."  
"Really?" I was shocked. I had no idea English people were so forward. I'd had them marked down as stereotypical reserved types.  
"Well, perhaps not half an hour. Maybe three quarters." Jess winked and grinned and I realised that she was sassing me. I laughed.  
The line moved forward and presently we found ourselves inside, the sparse exterior was mirrored in here too. It was painted black had been fitted out with a stage at one end; rows of benched seating along each wall and very little else, save the lights denoting the emergency exits and the bathrooms. The five of us kept together as other people packed in. The crowd were mostly young people in their late teens or early twenties, all sporting the unofficial uniform of slightly scruffy jeans and shirts. These people clearly didn't come here to be seen, they came for the music. You couldn't see anyone anyway; it was dark apart from the lights trained on the stage.  
There were three bands that night, an identikit mix of young skinny men in threadbare t-shirts, shouting inaudible lyrics into microphones. I don't think any of us were impressed by what we saw of the first two bands and neither were the audience, who clapped politely but more often than not talked all the way through the sets.  
"You can sing much better than that." Ricky said in my ear after the second band had been on. "We've got nothing to be worried about." He was stood behind me and his left hand had been resting on my waist for the last half an hour. It was not an unpleasant sensation, I noted.  
Zak arrived back from asking about us being on the bill and had news that there were slots available from the end of October. He was confident we could have something ready by then. The first band on had played four songs and Zak figured we could do that right now.  
"After only two rehearsals?" Queried Jess.  
"Hey, we're better than those guys already. We've got nothing to worry about." Jess didn't seem to share his confidence.  
The third band was better, capturing and keeping the audience's attention. I studied the lead singer who had a great stage presence, something I would need to work on. Singing at the wall was one thing; singing to other people was something else. Would my family come down and see me? Would they like what they saw? Jake would come. Jake would turn up if I sang at a wall. Jess disappeared to the bathroom half way through and was a very long time. Eventually she returned with a smile as wide at the Amazon and eyes like saucers.  
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" She repeated quickly, clutching her had to her breast.  
"What?"  
"I have just met the most gorgeous man on the planet!" Was that all? I thought from her reaction he was having some kind of heart attack. "Think Alric the vampire, but in real life. He was to die for," she sighed. I scanned the crowd quickly, but couldn't find any tall blonde men who looked the colour of death, although plenty looked like they’d crawled out of a dumpster.  
"Where is he?"  
"Over there." Jess looked and spotted him behind me. "Oh he's leaving." Her shoulders sagged. I turned around and saw the back of a tall man, blonde hair reaching to his shoulders, walking to the exit. He too looked like he'd just crawled out of a dumpster. "He's called Randall and he's a music journalist. He's here frequently he says, so he'll look out for our band. Oh Ness! He was astonishing! Oh we've got to come here again! If he's here frequently, I want to be too!" Jess stared unseeingly towards the exit. Randall was gone now, but I recognised from her frequent mental absences when she was day dreaming about Alric, that Jess was making herself at home on Planet Randall. I smiled. I didn't have any knowledge of daydreaming about boys, it wasn't something I'd ever done. Was I supposed to act this way about Ricky? May be it would come in time.  
Drawing up outside Charlie's house in Forks, I realised with a sinking feeling that I might be expected to kiss Ricky. I really didn't know if I wanted that to happen. It was fortunate then, that the noise of the car drew Charlie to the window and see who it was. The perfect excuse not to kiss him. Thank you Grampa!  
"Chief Swan's checking up on me." I grinned and turned to Ricky. "Thanks for lunch and for a lovely day. I'll see you Monday?"  
"Yeah. I'll see you." He said. I got out, closed the door and Ricky pulled smartly away. I scooted down the path and through the front door. Charlie was standing in the doorway of the living room and Jake was right behind him.  
"Hi Charlie, Hi Jake." I said, beaming.  
"Glad to see you're home safe," said Charlie. "Did you have a fun evening?"  
"Yeah we did. There are some slots from the end of October onwards; Zak's thinking we should aim for that.  
"So soon?" Commented Jake.  
"Zak's confident."  
"Was that Zak?" Charlie inclined his head in the direction of the street.  
"No, that was Ricky, the drummer."  
"Ricky?"  
"Scott."  
"I know his mother." There was no comment about him being trouble, so I guessed that Ricky had never come to Charlie's professional attention.  
"Anyway, it's late; you should probably head on up now."  
"Is it ok if I go up for a while?" Jake pointed up the stairs.  
"Sure, go ahead." Jake and I went upstairs and Charlie disappeared back into the living room. I couldn't see that Sue was there.  
I flicked on a couple of lights and pushed up the window to let some air in. Jake pulled up my pillows and sat on my bed with his legs out. I kicked off my shoes and climbed on beside him, leaning up against him. A familiar warm arm was draped around my shoulders. This is how we usually sat. In the world I was adjusting to, everything was different, but here with Jake, things were just as they'd always been. There wasn't anything he didn't know about me. Jake knew precisely who and what I was. I didn't need to pretend to be anyone else. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the familiar, comforting smell of him. It relaxed me and I struggled to stifle a yawn.  
"Tired?" he asked.  
"A little. It was a long day yesterday and I didn't sleep so good last night."  
"Is there a problem?"  
"No, I just kept waking up."  
My stomach gurgled. Perhaps I would get a snack before bed.  
"Was last night enough? Do you need more? I can take you out again," Jake seemed anxious.  
"No it's fine. I'll be OK for the week."  
"If you do need more, you just say; I'll be happy to come with you anytime."  
"I can do it on my own." I smiled at him.  
"I know, but I promised Edward and Bella that I'd take care of you, make sure you're eating right. We can't have you existing on a diet of pizza and coke."  
"Heaven forbid," I grinned. "Where's Sue?" I reminded myself that I hadn't seen her.  
"Out at a church thing."  
"Oh." She’d started going to a local church about a year ago. Charlie didn't attend but he had no objection to Sue going.  
The casual arm wrapped around me tightened into a hug and I put my arms around my best friend. With my ear against his chest I could hear the blood pumping around his body and my head rose and fell with his regular, deep breaths. We sat there in silence for a minute or two before I yawned again and Jake took that as his cue to leave. We bid each other goodnight and Jake made his way downstairs to say goodnight to Charlie.  
I changed into my pyjamas and went into the bathroom. As I stood in front of the mirror brushing my teeth I thought about why I hadn't wanted to mention Ricky to Jake. He was my best friend, why would I keep secrets from him? I thought about it, but couldn't come up with a coherent answer.  
I guess there were now some things that Jake didn't know about me after all. My life, to everyone around me, really was an intricate tapestry of secrets and lies.


End file.
